


The Eyes Have It

by ikebukuro



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Bass/Charlie if you squint, Because this is totally what I saw during that scene in 1x10, F/M, Gen, Minor vague spoilers, Mostly Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 12:26:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/748489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikebukuro/pseuds/ikebukuro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with the Matheson family is that they all have the same face — the same plain, sharp angled face with eyes (varying shades, sure, but the same eyes) that could look right through a person, find something inside them and judge their soul. And the smile. The Mathesons all have the same smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eyes Have It

**Author's Note:**

> Vague, minor spoilers for 1x10. This is just basically what I saw/interpreted in that scene with Strausser, Bass and the Mathesons. Because, Bass' expression at the time (and Charlie's reaction) is just impossibly complex and it makes me think.

The problem with the Matheson family is that they all have the same face — the same plain, sharp angled face with eyes (varying shades, sure, but the same eyes) that could look right through a person, find something inside them and judge their soul. And the smile. The Mathesons all have the same smile (even Miles, in the days before the Blackout when he did smile, and those rare times after the lights went out, too). They’ve all got the same smile and wielded properly, it can be sunlight or a subtle knife, an _Iloveyou_ without words or a _gofuckyourself_ that doesn’t need translation. They have a non-smile too. Uncannily, it has the same effect.

Bass would have known Charlie was a Matheson with one look, even if he hadn’t been told — rather triumphantly by Neville himself — that they were bringing in that ‘renegade, the Matheson girl’. And bring her in they did. When he enters the room, she and her mother are fawning worriedly over the boy and for moment she looks so much like Rachel twenty-years back in time — but then she lifts her head, rakes the room in a single glance and meets his gaze solidly, a little braver than she needs to be, like she expects to be turned to ash on the spot but dares him to call her a coward. And it’s that moment that Bass decides (absently, idly) that whatever the minor resemblance might be the girl doesn’t look _that_ much like Rachel. Because Rachel wasn’t born a Matheson; she married into the fire, the passion, and the inexplicably mad appeal of them. But Charlotte — Charlie — she’s Matheson through and through. It’s written all over her face. The Matheson face.

She faces him down with a death threat in her eyes and not a single syllable on her unsmiling lips.

Bass sees Miles in her and it hurts for half an instant before he cuts the sentiment off.

Later, he realizes she’s a lot more like Miles than he initially thought — and it's definitely more than a little because there's something else there too, something about the steel rigidity of her spine, the set of her shoulders; she's got that tip to her head and that set to her jaw that says she's not bending. And he'd be damned if she didn’t stare down the barrel of a revolver like it was nothing, like it wasn’t there, and there was no _save me_ in her eyes, no beg, no plea. She wasn’t the runner, she was the fighter — the stand and deliver and go down with dignity type. Threatening her with death was about as useful as AA batteries anymore — except that it made Rachel fold and _whatdoyouknow_ , the girl almost rolls her eyes when her mother makes the obvious choice. Disappointment. Irreverence. Confused frustration. Charlie Matheson doesn’t fear death for something she believes in — and can’t hide the let down in her eyes at the fear her long-lost mother gives in to all too easily.

Bass doesn’t know if anyone else sees it — but _he_ does.

He likes her, instantly.

And that’s almost a shame.

_Almost._

 


End file.
